Toward an Understanding of Factors Affecting the Adoption of Smartphones by Individuals in El Salvador: An Extension of the Technology Acceptance Model.

Abstract

The mobile phone market has changed significantly in the recent years with the introduction of new Smartphone device technology. These technologies have come into the spotlight as a substitute of feature phones in the mobile market and assist the potential adoption of new mobile applications. Smartphones have become much more versatile, allowing consumers improved usage for communication and preserving relationships between and among users. Like other innovative products, the Smartphone provides a unique taste on consumers who need to be experienced to value and are more curious about their potential uses. This study involves extended Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) to investigate the effect of individual’s intention of purchase and use of Smartphones in El Salvador and the impact on future purchase behavior. TAM model is one of the most widely used behavioral models among all information systems. In fact, the use of this model will provide an understanding of what really drives the intention to use Smartphone applications across Salvadoran consumers. To achieve the main objective of this study, we adopted TAM to analyze the acceptability of new technology and used SEM (Structural Equation model) for an empirical analysis. The results demonstrated that the proposed model successfully accounts for how Salvadoran users adopt smartphones. Also, our study confirmed and compared earlier results from previous researchers and proposed a solid model that can be used for further studies